I've always used my intellect as a way to contain what I felt. It's one of my biggest assets and also one of my greatest liabilities. I can rationalize, reframe, problem solve, organize and repackage just about anything. On one hand, it helps me to keep a more balanced perspective and protects my mind from adding more fuel to what I'm feeling. On the other hand, it has always kept the fire of my emotions deep in the belly of my body, where I can't get to them as they simmer and spark, creating all manner of chaos inside.
We feel emotions IN the body as SENSATIONS. Many of us aren't emotionally literate and don't know how to connect emotions and sensations and allow them to naturally process. Instead, we fear them as something foreign, scary or wrong with us. They are actually safe and amazing guides that help us to navigate our experience in this world. They tell us when our boundaries have been crossed, when we've experienced a breach of trust, when we've lost something deeply important to us or when we've said or done something outside of our core values.
Many of us were raised with well meaning caregivers who didn't know how to teach us the language of our emotions, because they were never taught. Instead, we received messages that what we were feeling or trying to express was wrong. What we needed was safety, mirroring, naming, validation and guidance on how to work with our emotions and how to express them appropriately.
With this common deficit, everyone learns different coping mechanisms. Some of us shut down and dissociate, some of us stay constantly busy, some of us stay anxious and run to everything outside of us, looking for solutions or soothing, some of us use substances and addictive habits to numb and some of us use our minds to bypass the body. We may also use a combination of many of these and probably a thousand more unique coping strategies.
I've used my mind as my main coping strategy to try and problem solve and bypass what I was feeling. I've never felt like I could rely on other people to help me cope with big feelings, so I created my own strategies but they just kept me locked outside of what needed to be witnessed and held.
Today I stumbled upon some old communications with my last partner. He was highly intellectual and we spent A LOT of time arguing via e-mail. I read through an old message today where I watched myself compartmentalizing deeply painful emotions while trying to "rationalize" with my partner about my emotional needs. I was trying to negotiate a safe place to FEEL, but he wasn't willing or capable. I could see the desperation I was holding back and how I was just looking for someone to anchor me in enough safety so I could let down the walls and process the pain (that he created).
When I got sick, I was told that it was due to fear and that if I just stopped feeling afraid, I'd get over it. The diagnosis was actually correct. I was sick because of fear, but it wasn't because I needed to stop feeling it, it was because I needed to BEGIN feeling it. My fear was suppressed, not active. As a child, my fear was a burden. It was inconvenient and more often ignored. I was terrified all the time and had nobody to hold me or help me to understand what was going on. I was loved and my parents did the very best they could. They just didn't know or understand, and I suffered the consequences. I was an extremely sensitive child living with the torment of fear that I couldn't regulate.
This fear stayed alive within my body. Familiar unconscious triggers (scents, words, visual cues, activities, times of year, recurring events) would bring it roaring to life in my body and I would scramble to "manage" what was being felt, thinking that it was dangerous. Eventually this led to me developing symptoms. The symptoms then became another source of fear, which just reinforced the pattern.... fear/symptoms ...... symptoms/fear..... fear/symptoms.... etc. It becomes its own cycle of hell and ends up imprisoning the person. The more fear and symptoms the person experiences the more their capacity shrinks. Less capacity means less ability to process and eventually you get so backlogged that you are stuck.
There is a way out and it's different for everyone, but it always begins with safety. Some people find that safety with a medical doctor who gives them a treatment that resolves an infection. Some find safety with kind and caring practitioners who offer safe touch and help them to connect to their felt senses. Some find it with a therapist who listens without being rocked by their BIG feelings. Some find it by learning how to give it to themselves. Some find it by finally understanding that the monsters they feel within (emotions/sensations) aren't actually as dangerous as they thought. Some find it within a safe and secure partnership or friendship. Some find it by using psychedelics or medicines that help them to process and integrate past wounds.
Safety is the doorway that allows us to begin feeling into what's locked inside. It helps us to either reassess what we've always believed was dangerous by shining a light on the proverbial monster under the bed, or to simply meet what is being felt and allow it to process. Some people need help reassessing, some just need to hear that all is well, some need to feel and process and some need a little of everything. We heal when we become more fully integrated. Integration requires feeling. For many of us, feeling requires safety.
What makes you feel safe? How easy is it for you to feel and process your felt sense emotions? Do you have symptoms that frighten you? Do you have emotions that frighten you?
Would you like to understand more about the connection between your emotions and your body and how to learn how to feel more safety to work with your emotions?
If the answer is yes, I would like to invite you on a journey to reconnect to yourself, where you can learn the truth about your body and emotions and release the fear of being human and having a body that feels. The side benefits are often a decrease in symptoms and the expression of pain.
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